The first thing I’d like to point out is that any device connected to the internet is automatically placed at risk by someone possibly hacking through all the security measures and infiltrating that device. I do something that struck a fellow programmer as odd and that was to disable my internet connection when I’m not using it. This never used to be an issue many years ago as you needed to dial up to connect to the internet but with high speed internet and devices like our smart phones this changed, today we leave our devices constantly at risk not out of necessity but out of convenience. Even something as simple as leaving your Bluetooth enabled could get you hacked, just to mention one type of scam where hackers used exposed Bluetooth phones to place calls to 1-800 numbers that would continue to earn money until the user discovered that their phone called someone and ended the call.
Now for those of you who have jail broken their phone or found some third party software somewhere for free and installed it. You have absolutely no clue as to if that program has been tampered with or modified, the risk doesn’t come from playing a free game the risk comes from that free game being able to track your bank activity or some other use.
Understanding how to read a URL the address at the top of your browser is also pretty important these days as well. Using what’s known as phishing a malicious user can easily send an email to you pretending to be your bank and then by scarring you into thinking something critical needs to be addressed they get you to click on a link which pretends to be your banks website but is actually theirs. Then they just wait for you to enter your banking information and password before they do something like send you to the real site which makes it look like something went wrong.
The second last thing I’d like to point out which floored the business owner and might come as a shock to you as well is that by sending ordinary emails or even just surfing unencrypted sites or web pages (majority of them), any and all the information you send or view can be tracked by just about anybody anywhere by simply just changing how their computers network card works. This is a simple setting that allows the network card to do what’s called “sniffing” and doesn’t require the NSA, this can be done randomly or specifically if someone knows your computers IP address. Basically by recording what you do they rebuild all the information on their computer and can read or view what you’ve done? This should only be a concern when passing along important information as saying something like “Hey, how are you doing?” will not give the hacker any leverage.
The last thing worth mentioning is the use of hot spots that give you free internet, these could potentially come with a huge price tag. As you gain the advantage of obtaining someone’s Internet access you’re potentially also giving someone access to your device as well since it’s now connected to their network. Not only can they easily track what you’re doing as mentioned above but they can actually gain complete access to your device now as well. Although a number of businesses do offer legitimate hot spots for their customers to use doesn’t stop someone in the area from masquerading as a hotspot with the same name as that business. By allowing your smartphone to join networks without asking permission you could very easily join a hotspot without a required password as well so you might not even know that you joined as you walk by that particular network.
You might not be able to stop them but by staying alert and informed you could prevent it…